Vienna: A Whirlwind of Freud, Mozart, and the Habsburgs

Vienna was initially underwhelming.  We used Gus as our measurement, which carried over from Venice, when he periodically updated us on his level of "whelm."  We arrived there at like 3 AM, but I don't even remember for sure, because the last week was really a blur of travel by bus.  The hotel was less confusing than the Venice one, and as Dani put it, she felt like she was staying in someone's house, which I guess is valid if you're only considering the actual room, which was full of wooden furniture and coziness.  The hotel breakfast was less impressive here, in my opinion, but most everyone else thought it was better.  I'm not the best judge since I'm such a picky eater, but Venice had better bread.

Anyways, our first morning was spent orienting ourselves within Vienna by visiting some famous churches.  One of them was really cool, because we could take an elevator up to the dome to see the paintings up close, and the braves ones in our group took the stairs from there to go even higher to the top of the dome, but I was not one of them.  That scaffolding was rickety.  The second church was a gothic cathedal, which I always think are beautiful.  The final one was really strange.  It had some modern art exhibition in it that was of some gold table settings underwater, which allegedly had a lot of religious symbolism involved, but what I found more impressive was that this church had a fake dome that looked real if you stood in a particular spot on the floor and looked up.

We had free time next, so a group of us when to the Freud museum, which was underwhelming.  I don't really know what I was expecting, but it sure wasn't the rooms of his books and notes and other things like that, mostly written in German.   The next thing we did, though, made Vienna suddenly four times more awesome, and that was seek out Prater Amusement Park to ride its famous Ferris wheel.  However, we got there and were distracted by this thing that was like a significantly elevated chair swing, and rode that instead.  The park was different from American in two main ways- 1) You paid per ride and 2) They had so many kinds of rides I've never even seen before in American parks.  It was awesome, and we wanted to go back later that night but it didn't end up happening.

Everyone gathered at our meeting place at 3 to head over to the Habsburg's summer palace together.  Schloss Schoenbrunn was completely awesome, and I learned the value of an audioguide.  I think I would've enjoyed Versailles a lot more if I'd had an audioguide, actually.  The best part of Schoenbrunn, though, were the grounds, which were vast and green.  We spent a lot of time exploring them and climbed a massive hill to get a great view of Vienna.

When it came time to leave, though, we thought incorrectly that we knew how to get back to the hotel.  We either followed incorrect directions or incorrectly followed directions, which resulted in us getting off two metro stops before the one we should have gotten of at, which resulted in about 35 minutes of walking rather than 5, which disoriented us and ultimately made us really late for dinner.  It was really stressful, actually, because while most everyone else had also been late, nobody had been as late as us.  It was silly, really, because we'd left with 40 minutes to get back and we should have been early, if it weren't for that metro mistake.  Plus, I was developing some more blisters, which seems to be a recurring problem in my travels.

Anyways, then it was dinnertime, and we all went to a restaurant and it was awful, in my opinion, but nearly everyone else liked it.  I don't like crepes much in general, but I especially don't like dinner crepes.  Crepes are more dessert or breakfast.  You can't eat dessert or breakfast for dinner when you're super hungry after a really long day.  I can't even eat breakfast for dinner under normal circumstances, actually.

After dinner, a group of us went to go see Mozart's house, which would of course be closed since it was nighttime, but we still thought it'd be cool to see it.  After following the strangest directions on a sign I've ever seen, we found it, gazed upon it, witnessed a nearby dogfight, and left in search of something to do.  Attempts were made at souvenir shopping, but Viennese souvenirs were more expensive than Venetian ones! I couldn't really buy anything except an overpriced keychain.  We all hung out at an Australian pub until some of us got tired and others wanted to go find a club, and we went our separate ways and I went to bed.

The next morning, after packing up our stuff, loading it onto the bus, and eating breakfast, we all went to the Kunsthistoriches Museum, which was overwhelmingly full of art, and we had a packet to do that went with it.  I really hate those packets.  They take away from the experience of enjoying an art museum.  I was kind of miserable, actually, because I was so focused on answering the questions and not running out of time (we only had a few hours before the bus left, you see, and we still had to eat lunch, too).  Anyways, we got it done, and Laura and I went off in search of food and bus snacks.  We got some really good pizza and gelato before entering a grocery store to get water, because we knew at this point that a bus ride without water is the worst experience ever.  I also bought carrots, which I forgot to eat and later got all slimy in my backpack when I found them in Berlin, which was gross.



The bus ride home wasn't too long, luckily, and we got back early, which was awesome because we had to leave that night for Berlin and therefore had more time to get ready.

I think I would like Vienna if I had more time there to experience it, and I would love to go back there one day with my sister.